I never lie.. or do I? (IPC Practice puzzles) (Part 2!)

I promised a liar slitherlink, so I haven’t lied there, but I’ve given you 10 clues that lie, so haven’t I lied there? So am I a liar or not? I can guarantee you this slitherlink is anyway.

So after that embarrassingly lame opening, I’ll again link to the Indian Puzzle Championship and tell you you’ll get a better idea if you refer to the examples and rules there of what exactly I’m giving you here.

Regarding yesterday’s as well as today’s and possibly tomorrow’s puzzles, since many of you solvers practicing will probably be newcomers, I’m giving my mail id where you can send any doubts, help requests, solutions etc. – bimbimbong@yahoo.co.in

Again, there were supposed to be more/better puzzles today, but I was busy making a deadline for my publishers, so had to create 3 for that. And then I messed up the graphics of the triangular As Easy As ABC. I may/may not have a part 3 up because of this.

Now, to the puzzles!

Liar Slitherlink

Draw a single continuous loop along the dotted vertical or horizontal line segments. Crossovers or branches are not allowed. Clues given inside the cell indicate the count of line segments surrounding that cell, that are part of the loop. Exactly one clue in each row and each column is false. It is part of solving to determine the liar clues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masyu No Touch

Draw a single closed loop using horizontal and vertical segments. It does not cross or overlap itself, and it may not visit all cells. The loop makes 90o turn at every cell with a black circle, but does not make a turn immediately before or after. The loop goes straight at every cell with a white circle, but makes a 90 degree turn immediately before or after or both. Cells unvisited by the loop cannot be
orthogonally adjacent to each other.

I made 2 puzzles of this type, simply because I said “Oops” after the first one.

 

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Its as easy as IPC (practice puzzles) (Part 1?)

I’m not numbering these simply because I don’t want to rush to 200 as I’m not ready with an idea for that 😛

These are puzzles that can be used for practice for the Indian Puzzle Championship and you can refer to the Instruction booklet provided on that link for better understanding of the rules with examples.. These are mostly around the difficulty I’ve generally seen at IPC, i.e. , around easy for experienced solvers, somewhere from medium to more for the first time solvers.

I’ve concentrated on types that are not on my blog already. You can see previous posts for Masyu, Slitherlink, Tapa, Graffiti Snake here and here.  I wasted a lot of today making a Liar Slitherlink only to find that I’d made a stupid error right at the start. Thats why only 6 puzzles, I hope to have either a Liar Slitherlink, or some other puzzles ready tomorrow, and Friday. Lets hope I get them working 😉

Anyway, obviously the heading suggests what I’m gonna open with.

As Easy As IPC

Enter the letters I, P and C, so that each letter appears exactly once in every row and column. Some cells will remain empty in each row and column. The letters outside the grid show the first seen letter from that direction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tapa Borders

Paint some empty cells to create a continuous wall. Numbers in a cell indicate the length of painted blocks on its neighboring cells. If a cell has more than one number, there must be at least one white cell between the blocks. No 2×2 squares can contain only painted cells. The borders between some cells may be thick or non existent. A thick border separating two cells means one is painted and one is not. Lack of a border means the 2 cells are either both painted or both white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Battleships 

Locate the indicated fleet in the grid. Each segment of a ship occupies a single cell. Ships can be rotated but cannot be reflected. Ships do not touch each other, even diagonally. Some ship segments, or sea cells without ship segments, are given in the grid. The numbers outside the grid reveal the total number of ship segments in that row or column.

Note : The letters A, B, C may be equal or unequal, the only constraint I’ve added is that their sum equals 4. This is just to introduce first timers to the summing up logic that can be used sometimes in this type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snake 

Locate a snake in the grid, whose head and tail are given. The snake does not touch itself even at a point. Numbers outside the grid indicate lengths of snake segments in the corresponding direction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Star Battle 

Place the given number of stars in each row, each column and each region. Stars cannot touch each other, not even diagonally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colored Star Battle

I’m new to this type myself even as a solver, so the puzzle may leave a lot to be desired. Sorry about that. Although it should be an easy warm up for first timers, I do think the difficulty of the IPC one will be higher given the high points. Anyway,  Place the given number of stars in each row, each column and each region. Similarly colored stars cannot touch each other, not even diagonally. Some stars may be given.

Announcement : The Indian Puzzle Championship is a week away! Also, Puzzle No. 165 and 166 – A Tapa and a Yajilin

I think thats the longest title yet on this blog ^_^

Anyway, the Indian Puzzle Championship features among many others, some puzzles like Sudoku, Kakuro, Hitori, Slitherlink(Fences) that will be familiar to Indians.  This will be held on June 3rd, online, at 2 PM. I encourage all Indians to take part. I was 6th in my first IPC in 2010, so you never know how good you are till you try 😛

You can visit the main contest link with a PDF download of the instruction booklet here.

Any questions/doubts can be asked here.

If you’re new to the logicmastersindia site, you’ll have to register here.

Tapa is one of the types on the test, so you might as well use it for practice while you’re here 😉

Now to the puzzles.

Puzzle No. 165 : Tapa.

Rules for Tapa.

Rated : Medium.

Puzzle No. 165

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puzzle No. 166 : Yajilin.

Rules for Yajilin.

Rated : Easy.

Puzzle No. 166

 

Non-Puzzle post : On a personal note…

First of all, I can confirm that I won’t be making a Matchmaker puzzle of my own. But not to worry, you have two good ones, one that I’d rate at easy and would be nice for starters, by Swaroop, here. The other’s by Para, which I’d say would be closer to the actual test’s difficulty, and you can find that here.

Now to why I’m not making a Matchmaker, when I’ve literally broken all limits of perseverance to squeeze the others out(just ask my test solvers of the Curve Data and the No Numbers Loop 😛 ). Well, that sentence itself is partly the reason. Between giving competitive contests, creating puzzles for the blog, creating puzzles for the newspaper, doing other little jobs, hanging out with friends probably more than I should given my workload, etc. I have literally been pushing myself too much. I’ve skipped meals and not realized it, skipped sleep and not realized it, just to keep getting things done. I’m looking forward to taking just a bit of a breather, after the No Numbers test I’ll take the weekend off to be refreshed for the Indian Puzzle Championship coming soon(more on that later, but you can see the forum here for announcements regarding the same). I’ll still be solving Sudokus since I barely get tensed up and stuff while doing that(for my mindoku friends 😉 )

Anyway, its been nice making the practice puzzles and I really hope they helped. I’ll resume posting my usual puzzles either tomorrow or Saturday( yea I know I talked about breather, but I actually have a few in reserve to keep it going 😛 ),  but I can promise that some of these types will re-appear on my blog in future, and thats why I’ve made separate categories for them. Especially Trio Cut, It’s Yours, No Numbers Field and Loop(with lesser figures to avoid/lesser orientations mostly).

That’s all folks!

Puzzle No. 163, 164 : More LMI Practice Puzzles

Right, so I finally got the No Numbers Loop working, I think. After taking 2-3 opinions, I do believe its fine, but to be completely honest you can never be sure of this type. I like all the other innovative rules, but I find this one a bit tiresome. The puzzle idea is great, and would probably be fun, but 10 different numbers with different orientations gives 70+ patterns to keep track of which is just way too much IMO.  You can always end up missing a number in some small area. But, I’m as sure as one can be that this one’s fine. Should do for practice anyway.

The second puzzle is another “It’s Yours”. I just thought the first one was a bit too easy. Not that this one’s overly difficult, but I suppose it’d make you think a little bit more than the previous one.

Puzzle No. 163 : No Numbers Loop.

Rules – Draw a closed loop in the grid. The loop can cross itself but otherwise never visits any point twice. in any two adjacent squares, the line segments of the loop cannot form a number in ANY orientation, i.e., even with rotation and reflection. Numbers outside the grid show the number of crossings made by the loop that exist in that direction. Some parts of the loop are already drawn, and the loop can’t go through places marked with ‘X’. The numbers in their natural orientations are listed above the grid.

Puzzle No. 163

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puzzle No. 164 : It’s Yours.

Rules – Put some pairs of Polyminos in the grid such that every polymino has one clue inside it. The clue in one polymino shows the exact shape without rotation or reflection of the other polymino that forms the pair. The polyminos forming a pair must touch each other orthogonally and cannot touch other pairs of polyminos.

Puzzle No. 164

Puzzle No. 162 : LMI Practice Puzzle – No Numbers Field

Bad bad day for me. Been trying everything to make the No Numbers Loop work, but just haven’t been able to. So I’ll have to settle for uploading just this one for now. Enjoy!

Rules : Blacken some cells so that all unblackened cells can be connected Horizontally or vertically. Blackened cells can’t touch each other horizontally or vertically.In each row or column, the figures of unblackened cells can’t form a number (listed above the grid), when all are combined together.

Puzzle No. 162

 

Puzzle No. 158-161 : LMI No Numbers Practice Puzzles.

Next weekend, LMI holds its first monthly puzzle test since all the way back to the Puzzle Marathon where I authored one puzzle. The Tapa season came in between, and there were 3 Sudoku tests as well in this time. So, I’m really looking forward to this one.

The Test theme is “No Numbers”, and has some pretty innovative puzzle types. The author is Ko Okamoto. The IB and Submission link for the same can be found here.

Right out I’ll say that the main aim in creating these was to make myself understand the types better. But, since I have created them, I thought I’d share them for others too.

Just before the IB was up, I had had the idea of something with the exact rules as Trio Cut, and planned to create it as a Norinori variant type. But as it happens, not only was it proven not to be an original idea, it actually appears in an LMI test before I can get to creating it! No worries, I’ve created one here that I’m quite happy with. As such, I was most comfortable creating this one as I have a base in Norinori.

Curve Data and Synchronized maze are types I have absolutely no experience with. The Curve Data type can surely work with fewer clues, and I bet a lot more can be done with Synchronized Maze. But I at least understand some level of solving for these now, and hopefully it works the same way for others. After all, practice is practice 😛 I must say, I’ve had a mad time getting the Curve Data too work. First Tom C tested it, found a uniqueness issue, then after I fixed, even he thought its fine, and then just as I was about to post I found an issue again! About 6 similar scenarios later(as you can see by the name of the pic once you click on it), with input from Murat, Swaroop, Para, we finally have a good puzzle. I hope.

The “It’s Yours” (had to put it in quotes because those are such commonly used words!) worked well, but ended up quite an easy difficulty level. I’m sure that in the test, there will either be larger puzzles, or smaller polyminos.  Also, it won’t be as easy to determine the pairs. I liked creating this one though, and may well give it another go tomorrow/day after.

I’m not making any guarantees, but I hope to have more practice puzzles up for this test. Hope you enjoy these for now.

Puzzle No. 158 – Trio Cut

Rules – Paint some cells to make some triminos so that each trimino will be cut twice by thick lines. Each region bordered by thick lines should have 3 painted cells.

Puzzle No. 158

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puzzle No. 159 : Curve Data

Rules –  Make some figures by drawing lines through the center of cells so that each figure goes through just one clue. All cells are visited by lines. A clue shows how the line passing through it turns and connects with itself, without any rotation or reflection. However, the clue does not specify length of each straight segment of the line in any way.

Puzzle No. 159

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puzzle No. 160 : Synchronized Maze.

Rules – Connect pairs of same alphabets with continuous lines. Each line should form the same shape, with rotation and reflection if necessary. Lines can’t go through blackened cells. The lines can cross each other but can’t share a path other than that.

Puzzle No. 160

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puzzle No. 161 : It’s Yours.

Rules – Put some pairs of Polyminos in the grid such that every polymino has one clue inside it. The clue in one polymino shows the exact shape without rotation or reflection of the other polymino that forms the pair.  The polyminos forming a pair must touch each other orthogonally and cannot touch other pairs of polyminos.

Puzzle No. 161

 

Puzzle No. 157 : Norinori

The UKPA have started something that I’m very much in favor of. Its called “Beginner’s Contests” and will apparently be a monthly puzzle contest, with numerous puzzles of just 2-3 different types. This contest is mainly for the newcomers, as there is no time limit for submissions. The puzzles won’t be completely trivial, but you have a full month basically to solve puzzles at leisure. There’s something for the experienced solvers too, you can maintain a competitive edge by submitting in usual contest speed, and then seeing where you stand in the results.

The first test is authored by Tom Collyer, and the test page, with IB, link for submissions, puzzle booklet, can be found here. It features Nurikabe, Slitherlink and Shikaku.  I’d like newcomers among Indians to give this a try too.

Anyway, to today’s puzzle now.

Rules for Norinori.

Rated : Medium, but on the easy side.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No. 157

 

Puzzle No. 156 : Regional Yajilin

Not a good day for me. And as has been the case with most of my regional Yajilins, I had to put a line in to fix the uniqueness issue, and also as usual, I’m uploading the puzzle anyway since I like it otherwise. I might even make this a trademark 😛

Rules for Regional Yajilin. As I said, I’ve taken a shortcut and given you 2 places where the loop passes.

Rated :  Medium.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No, 156

 

Puzzle No. 155 : Masyu

I can officially say, I am back to posting daily from today onwards. Therefore, I feel entitled to bore you a bit.

Today, I was finally looking at some level of free time ahead, well at least enough to get back to the blog, and do a few other things. Then, out of the blue, I went with 2 of my friends to see an IPL(Cricket) game. I’ll spare you the details of how exactly this came about, but I assure you that the “out of the blue” part is not just there as a lame <Mumbai’s blue jersey> reference pun. So anyway, I was extremely tired and looking to somewhat of a rest day, so this thing kinda threw all those plans away.

After the game, on the way back, I reflected(been reflecting a lot lately) on the fact that I really really wanted to get back to the daily puzzle thing. So, I decided to challenge myself. Knowing I would be tired once I got home(quite a good prediction, I can barely type!), I tried making a puzzle simply in my head. Now while this means I couldn’t get the usual symmetry going, I’m still ok with the layout. I then noted down some of the clue cells and just copied them into the laptop now, and I’m proud to say, it worked! You have yourselves a Masyu puzzle. And I’ve finally ended a story well!

Rules for Masyu.

Rated : Medium.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No. 155